This month Adam Driver fights dinosaurs in new film 65 so that’s it, cinema is complete, what more could we possibly want!?!
In all seriousness, 65 is the new feature from filmmaker duo Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, who are perhaps best known for writing hit 2018 horror movie A Quiet Place.
This time the pair are delivering both frights and fun as we visit Earth 65 million years ago, with pilot from another world Mills (Adam Driver) crash landing on the unknown territory.
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With his only chance at rescue several kilometres away, Mills must team up with the only other survivor, a young girl named Koa (Ariana Greenblatt), to make their way across a dangerous terrain riddled with yes, that’s right, dinosaurs.
It’s a ridiculously silly concept which sets expectations that the film more than lives up to, throwing back to the action B movies that were popular in the ’80s and ’90s.
For duo Beck and Woods, making 65 helped make their childhood dreams come true, openly admitting to Zavvi that it was totally an excuse to produce a dinosaur movie.
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Beck explained: “Bryan and I have known each other since we were 11 years old and we’ve been making films since then, dreaming of being able to make a dinosaur movie for all of those years.
“It’s tough as when you are in the shadow of a movie like Jurassic Park, you want to make sure that you are able to create something brand new.
“That was the fuel for our fire – creating something with dinosaurs that is super cinematic and hopefully driving people back to movie theatres.”
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Something that will certainly draw in audiences is the fact that it is Adam Driver battling the dinosaurs, the star of hits such as BlacKkKlansman, Marriage Story, and, of course, the recent Star Wars trilogy.
For the filmmakers, Driver was the perfect man to bring Mills to life thanks to his ability to ground even the most unhinged characters and stories, something which was essential here given the nature of 65.
As Beck stated: “For the character of Mills we needed to find somebody that was incredibly grounded and authentic otherwise for us, this movie wouldn’t work.
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“And Adam, in our opinion, you couldn’t get any better than that, he’s someone with this great theatrical and cinematic background. He digs into the script and so there was a lot of work on that which we all did together.”
Whilst Driver may be the headline act, 65 is very much a two-hander between him and newcomer Ariana Greenblatt, who is set to become a star once the film debuts.
However, you may already recognise Greenblatt thanks to her brief but crucial appearance as the young version of Gamora in Avengers: Infinity War.
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Beck and Woods came across Greenblatt during their worldwide search for the actor who will play Koa, the shy yet curious girl whom Mills has to take under his wing.
As Beck tells us, they were instantly drawn to the actor during her audition: “She won the role after showing that she can be so expressive and communicate things without having to say much at all.
“But she also had this great physicality for the stunt work and all the things that were required for the film. Ariana was game for it all and as a 13-year-old, she more than held her own against Adam.”
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As highlighted above, there is very little dialogue in 65 due to the fact that Mills and Koa don’t speak the same language, an obstacle which further complicates both their mission and surrogate father-daughter relationship.
This look at the nature of communication ties 65 to Beck and Woods’ previous film A Quiet Place, which saw a family take on monsters with an acute sense of hearing and starred deaf actor Millicent Simmonds as daughter Regan.
The pair clearly have a long-running interest in these themes, which Beck says is a result of what cinema means to them:
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“The connection between A Quiet Place and 65, it’s born from the idea of what we keep calling ‘pure cinema’, which is cinema’s ability to communicate without saying a line of dialogue.
“That is really beautiful to us, it’s a way internationally that whenever we are travelling, it feels like there is a kinship or way to communicate.
“Also, there are non-verbal natures that we all have in our own relationships with friends and family, that are sometimes more key than the things that we say.
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“So, that’s something we love to explore and it brings in an aspect of conflict too, between the characters of Koa and Mills here to enhance that relationship.”
One word that Mills very quickly teaches Koa is “run”, which is wise given that they are travelling across a land filled with vicious dinosaurs.
Bringing the prehistoric creatures to life was a challenge for the filmmaker duo, but one that they were excited about, having wanted to do this since they were kids.
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As Woods tells us, whilst the dinosaurs are mostly CGI creations, the team did want to use practical elements as much as possible too, especially since they knew that this would also aid the actors’ performances.
And they certainly got creative with this, even using performers from a popular circus troupe to breathe life into their dinosaurs:
“In order for the performances to be as authentic as possible, we actually occasionally had practical dinosaurs on set.
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“These weren’t necessarily dinosaurs that were shot for the movie, but we had a team of Cirque du Soleil performers dress up in these various raptor suits and be in the background.
“This would help Adam visualise certain moments, but they were predominantly CGI creations.
“We did use practical elements whenever we could but we also wanted to dream big with these creatures and design something that you haven’t seen before.”
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Now that Driver has sparred with dinosaurs in 65, the question is, ‘what will he fight on-screen next?’ It’s something that Woods has also been pondering, teasing that the options are limitless:
“There’s no limit to what Adam can do. We have seen him fight Jedi, dinosaurs, and even divorce in Marriage Story. What else could be next for him?”
Beck certainly has an idea and it’s one we totally want to see happen: “I think if there happens to be another Alien movie, maybe cast him in that if Ridley Scott is directing.”
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The good news for Beck is that there is indeed both a new Alien film and TV series in the works, however, neither are being helmed by Scott (instead Fede Álvarez and Noah Hawley are directing the projects respectively).
Still, Scott is on board as a producer for both projects and so, if Driver is cast it’s a compromise we are happy to make – and we are sure Beck will agree.
After all, who doesn’t want to see Adam Driver fight a Xenomorph?!?
